Bills would raise money for roads and bridges, abolish Sakonnet River toll

PROVIDENCE — A group of East Bay legislators has filed bills that propose to raise $1 billion over the next 10 years for roads and bridges and abolish the controversial toll on the Sakonnet River Bridge.Led...

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By
Paul Edward Parker
Posted Feb. 12, 2014 @ 9:18 pm

PROVIDENCE — A group of East Bay legislators has filed bills that propose to raise $1 billion over the next 10 years for roads and bridges and abolish the controversial toll on the Sakonnet River Bridge.

Led by Sen. Louis P. DiPalma of Middletown and Rep. John G. Edwards of Tiverton, the legislators propose taking money from a variety of sources to fund an “infrastructure trust fund” that would pay for road and bridge maintenance.

It also would do away with the Rhode Island Turnpike and Bridge Authority, making the agency a division within the Department of Transportation.

Money would come from earmarking 1.5 percent of state revenue for the fund, from a temporary 5 percent surcharge on fees collected by the Division of Motor Vehicles, from the gasoline tax, from potential state borrowing and from a potential 0.125-percentage-point boost in the sales tax.

The borrowing, through bond issues that would have to be approved by voters, would only be used if other sources did not supply enough money. It would be a safety valve for the fund, Edwards said in an interview with The Providence Journal.

The sales tax boost would only follow if the state begins to collect sales tax on Internet transactions. If the state does that, the sales tax rate is expected to drop from 7 percent to 6.5 percent. Under the proposed infrastructure legislation, it would drop to 6.625 percent, Edwards said.

The representative said that Rhode Island needs to make infrastructure maintenance a priority. “Our infrastructure is our most valuable asset,” he said.

The $1 billion would only go to transportation infrastructure, Edwards said. “This is the roads, the bridges, the overpasses — all the stuff we need to get on the road and drive to work, drive to school.”

Edwards said that it’s only fair that all Rhode Islanders pay for upkeep of the Sakonnet River Bridge and other East Bay bridges now under the control of the Turnpike and Bridge Authority — the Pell Bridge, the Jamestown-Verrazzano Bridge and the Mount Hope Bridge — just as all Rhode Islanders pay to maintain the rest of the bridges in the state.

The legislation would ban tolls on all but the Pell Bridge between Jamestown and Newport, which the legislators considered making toll-free as well.

“We tried. We looked at it. We couldn’t get beyond the money,” Edwards said, adding that, after roads and other bridges are up to snuff, the legislature could revisit removing the Pell Bridge toll.

The toll on the new Sakonnet River Bridge has been hotly contested for more than a year. The 10-cent toll now in effect is scheduled to revert to the authority’s higher toll schedule in April unless the General Assembly changes that deadline or eliminates the toll altogether.